THE BOOTLEGGER (#spokensunday)

The audio reading for my #SpokenSunday poem "The Bootlegger" can be found HERE.

Check out more #SpokenSunday action below via Twitter.

Read More

NOIR DREAMS (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

NOIR DREAMS
I imagine snapping the brim
of a non-existent fedora after
I find the Benny Goodman
tape somewhere it shouldn’t be.

Only then do I shut my eyes.

After a moment, I check my
father’s pocket watch and
hope the shirt-tail is properly
tucked. I do this much after
the fact but nevermind that.

I’m ready.

As I prowl Sunset amidst a sea
of Caddie fins and crackly neon,
the Benny Goodman stops and
reality socks me in the snooker
hard with a Louisville Slugger.

Here in The City of Night, I’m
chasing noir dreams that deep
down I know are pure figments.

I long for palm trees and
all I get are dead shrubs;


I yearn for Ava Gardner or
Betty Bacall – or some grand
dame with killer eyebrows,
a quick wit and a thirst for
the good life and all I see
is Sally who looks like
lunchmeat on a Thursday;

I want to dine at the Brown Derby
and all I can afford is the cardboard
they peddle at 3 Brothers in Venice;

I need a double-breasted Zoot Suit yet
all I can muster are premium Dickies
straight outta the Sears Wishbook;

I want spit-shined wingtips,
black and white, and ready to
kill roaches and I get these
busted up Chuck Taylors;

I salivate for single-barrel scotch
and I all get is this bathtub gin;

I look around for George Raft on his
way to the commissary and all
I see are

the tattooed,
the pierced,
the depraved

and I shake my head as to where
we’re all going and wonder what
happened to the glamorous life?

I’ll never know cuz I never lived it.

Read More

TWO GUYS AND A FLASK (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

TWO GUYS AND A FLASK

Inside a rundown trailer somewhere within
the steel-framed heartland, they drank
in the dark, these two guys and a flask.

Percy was sprawled on the stained couch,
while Hank sat slouched on the floor near
its torn arm. They both basked in the warm
comfort of their friendship and conversation.

In between long and peacefull lulls,
they chatted about their life, recalling
old girlfriends and cars and the
money and effort spent on each.

they sipped ...
and shared ...
and shared ...
and sipped...
these two guys and their flask.

A frigid breeze snuck in from under
the trailer door and Percy felt it.
The space heater, now in the corner,
was busted to shit after he kicked
it the other night after he found out
that she left him for good this time.

It's just as well, Percy told Hank.
She hated the trailer, their life
and just about everything in it.
While Percy missed her, he knew
it was right but it still made him feel
like a loser. He didn't have the guts
to tell Hank that he was scared
of being alone. All alone.
Who would want him now?

...so they sipped
and shared ...
and shared ...
and sipped some more...

The full moon barelled through an
uncovered window and it's gloom
captured Percy's old trophies.
Once majestic, they were now just
dusty figmants, clinging to life on
on the stage of a crickety shelf.
They were mostly old accolades
for fishing and football. Percy asked
Hank about one of those old high
school games and the two chatted
about cheerleaders and coaches and
how both made them feel so inadequate.

They shared and sipped again.

Hank, then, suddenly got quiet and
thought of his wife Nancy.
He told Percy that she was
a bitch. Always was.

He said that they were on the
verge of divorce and explained
how she hijacked his spirit and life
and that their love was really nothing
more than a deeply-infected wound.

When Percy asked what happened,
Hank explained that they each sold
the other a bill of goods that
simply wasn't delivered.

The two friends stared at the muted TV.
sipping and sharing,
sunken and drunken,
they went on all like this
all night...

These two guys and their flask.

---

"Two Guys and a Flask" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by Val Blurock "Bluesy V" and provided by Jemendo.

Read More

SUITCASES (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

SUITCASES

I got the suitcases out
of the garage. I just
need the big black one.
Packing.
Gotta love it.
This is an important
trip. Lots riding on it.
I never quite got used to
the concept of flying.
I mean, I’m an old pro
by this point, but
it still fills me with
dread every time I see
those terminal signs pepper the
highway on my approach.
All sorts of fucked up shit
goes through my brain.
Is the pilot drunk?
How’s the weather?
Any engine troubles?

Five minutes before, we
board I pop open the
valium and - out like a light.

Almost four hours later, I’m
strapped into an excuse
of a seat with
the turbulence
taunting everyone.
Obviously, I’m a wreck.
My secret is to watch the
stewardesses. If
they look worried, I’m
fucked. We’re all fucked.
They’re the fail-safe.
Cutie-pies in the sky serving
coffee and a smile.

But soon, we land. And I
relax. Another notch.
We taxi in.
But then, I have to
find my suitcase.
And it begins
all over again.

---

"Suitcases" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by Distmia, track No. 5 "Cita Fallida" from the disc "Cuando la Ciudad Duerme," and provided by Jamendo. Sound effect "ArrivalAnnounced" provided by "acclivity" at the Freesound Project.

Read More

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION: AT THE BIJOU

My noir piece, "An Unlikely Partner" is up and live in a Noir-arama Double-Double Feature of talented scribes on the tasty blog At the Bijou.

You will also find three delicious thrillers from the talented Kevin Michaels, the prolific Paul D. Brazill (who is everywhere online btw) and the super cool Bijou curator Absolutely*Kate, who's print project Harbinger*33 will showcase 33 super-talented scribes.

Please click play to enjoy an

audio reading of 'An Unlikley Partner'

Due to some minor technical 'movie theater' difficulties (damn those embed codes), I have an audio component to my noir that is not live on At the Bijou at the moment. So in the meantime (while the projectionist is working on the problem), I'd love for you to read along since it's my first full-length audio reading. Be warned, though, I'm no Barry Northern.

Read More

HOUSE OF CARDS (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

THE HOUSE OF CARDS
His new house is now a
reality.
As is the excrutiating
mortgage payments.
He won’t rest until they've been
there a year.
Only then will it seem real.
Yup, after twelve
months, he’ll put up his feet
for the first time.
And his wife will let
her hair down.
And then she’ll smile.
Finally.
Only then, will it seem doable.
They’d be bonafide.
Only then, will he unpack.

---

"House of Cards" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by From the Hip "Melancholee" and provided by The Internet Archive.

Read More

BUMS CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

BUMS CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS
In the gutter, you tend to
notice things normal
people wouldn't dare dream.
You notice puddles;
And that befriending a hungry
pooch can be your biggest
mistake or quite
frankly, your only hope;
Nerf footballs make the
oddest shapes when each
end is chopped off and
they make damn fine pillows;

Blended beers from different
bottles don't taste all
that bad once you get used
to the initial warm jolt;
If you think women are hard
to come by in the waking world,
brother, just wait until you
haven't showered for a fortnight;

You realize that the time
of day doesn't seem all that
important anymore;
Bums celebrate Christmas;
You hair can hurt;
A small radio tuned to a lonely
talk station will get you through
the coldest of nights;
Oh, and a can of soup won't hurt;

You remember your best job
and wonder how it all went
poof;
And then you remember;
You start to blame people;
Your shitty company;
cheating wife;
that fucking president;
And then you take another
sip of that glorious hooch
and hope you pass out
before the wind keeps you awake;

You look at children walking
to school and that makes
you weep on so many different
levels that it's incomprehensible;
Their bounce reminds you
of promise and that's
something long gone;

You savor matchbooks;
You consider knocking that
old lady in the head just to
get off the street and land
in a nice warm cell, but then
you remember your mother and
hear her soothing voice;

After a time, the gutter
makes you read people
much better than you would
normally; you can see
where they went wrong;
It's in their eyes.

---

"Lottery Man" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by RobinHood76 "Christmas Background1" and provided by The FreeSound Project.

Read More

LOTTERY MAN (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

LOTTERY MAN
Back when I worked at the luncheonette,
I remember the guy used to come
in every day. Sometimes twice.

He'd sit at the counter, order his coffee,
break out his pad and pencil and began
to jot down numbers. All sorts
of fucking numbers.

Every page would be dated and under
each day, he would jot down the
winning lottery numbers in pencil.
Licking the tip each time before he wrote,
he'd mumur to himself, almost trance-like.

Lottery Man would analyze the numbers
by tabulating how many odd and even
winners came up per week, month
and year. He'd jot down odd facts
like how often '3' would appear and
would often say if he could get rid of
any number, it would be easily be '9.'

He'd call me 'Sonny...' and would ask
me to steal him an instant rub-off on
the sly at least once a week. When I
declined, 'Sonny...' became 'Mary...'
and Phil the owner would usually give
him more coffee, as if he needed it.

I knew his son. We were the same age
and all I could think was, 'Why aren't
you home with him?'

Lottery Man would win now and again and
usually brag about what he'd buy
his family. One year it was a computer,
then a microwave. He always said
he wanted a video camera but never
got one.

When I quit for college, he bought me
an instant rub-off for good luck.
The last thing I remember about
about Lottery Man was splitting our
winnings which bought me my books.
Here's hoping he got that camera...

---

"Lottery Man" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by Bossa2 "Cuando Vuelva a Tu Lado" and provided by Jamendo.

Read More

OVER A HAMBURGER (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

OVER A HAMBURGER
So here we were.
Again.
Staring at each other,
this time over a hamburger
during a late lunch.
And I can’t drink this
fucking beer fast enough.
I need to get out of this zone.
The more she doesn’t say
anything, and stares at me or
into space, the more my head pounds.
It throbbed the second we got up,
partly because I was dreading
the day that would be coming.
She was still pissed about
our talk which never gets
us anywhere, but here,
staring at each other
over a hamburger.
Again.

---

"Over A Hamburger" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by 'kaponja' Guitar Arpeggio" and provided by Freesound.

Read More

I WEAR HIS JACKET (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

I WEAR HIS JACKET
The military jacket was crumpled
in a sloppy ball on the floor of the
antique show that some chickadee
dragged me to.

After hours and hours and rows
upon rows of beat-to-shit furniture,
hat pins and jewelry boxes, I saw it,
this gorgeously authentic army jacket.
Laying there, musty and crinkled, I
tried it on and it was a perfect fit.
This was the real deal, not some
knockoff shit direct from Abercrombie
but a coat that evoked history.

From the tattered interior stitching
I'm guessing the coat was issued
during Korea or maybe even Vietnam.
The patch had the name 'HALL'
and I started to think about him.

Wearing it, not a day goes by where
I don't have questions like how many
offensives had he seen? Was he scared?
I think of the mud he crawled through.
I think of the horrendous rain this
coat must have endured and the
cigarettes he must have smoked during
those uncertain night patrols.

I wear his jacket and I think of the
dog he missed and that perfume
she used to wear on their dates
at the drive in that drove him crazy.

I think about his mom's reaction when
he told her that he enlisted and how
proud his dad secretly was that his boy
would finally be made a man by Uncle Sam.

I think of 'HALL' as I drive to work
and I do the math. He must have kids
around my age if he were still here.
I wonder if they think their dad was a hero?

I wear his jacket quite frequently now
and every time I get a compliment
for it, I think that yes, I wear 'Hall's'
jacket, but I could never fill his shoes.

---

"I Wear His Jacket" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by Rhonda Lorence, track No. 11 "Trail of Tears" on the album "Movements in the Moment," and provided by Magnatune.

Read More

THE BOOTLEGGER (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio recording

THE BOOTLEGGER
His outfit was buried deep within the foothills
of the North Carolina Appalachian mountains and
his potent clear liquid made him a local legend.

They called his hooch White Lightnin;
Who Shot Sally and even Brown Mule.
But Popcorn Sutton knew you were The Law
if you came around askin' for that 'White Liquor.'

Descendant from a long line of moonshiners,
Popcorn took his art seriously and would often
brag that he made more runs of liquor than
there were whiskers on his jaw.

Every morning he'd mix corn, water, yeast and sugar
in that big 'ol copper still and wait for the mash that made
some of the best Painter's Piss in all of Maggie Valley.
But what's a moonshiner to do when his life's work
can be bought in a bottle at the local Walmart?
Still, liquor was all he knew. It was a fundamental right.

By 2009, the jig was up and Popcorn was sentenced
to 18 months in the big house for illegally brewing
those mason jar spirits.

Cancer-stricken, the mountain man pleaded with the
judge to let him serve his sentence under house arrest.
When the petition that thousands signed couldn't help,
Popcorn tooks matters into his hands and comitted
suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning to avoid prison.

That 'White Liquor" finally done him in...

---

"The Bootlegger" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by Derek Porter, track No. 6 "Mars, Kentucky"on the album "Heaven's Hill," and provided by Jemendo.

Read More

WHAT SHE SAID (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

WHAT SHE SAID
She told him that he’d
eventually harness a gift,
which in all honesty had
come to scare him.

From the second he left
that tiny boardwalk booth,
freaky premonitions streamed
into his consciousness.
It got so bad that after
a while he'd have to ask
himself if they were
just silly mind tricks.
But then some of them started
to come true - little things
that actually happened and
it only made his situation worse.

Will she get into a deadly
car accident on the
way to work?
Will the kid be fine?
And mom, will this be
the last conversation?

He'd tell his friends to put
themselves in his shoes.
Imagine asking yourself
these daily, ritualistic
questions after some silly
storefront psychic laid
down that whopper of a
statement. It’s a burden.

Here it is a year later
and he's thinking
about asking for
his money back.

What right did she have?

---

"What She Said" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by Mister Todd, track "Organ Loop 2", and provided by The FreesoundProject. Music also by Cliftonaudio, "Accordian at La Republique", and provided by The FreesoundProject

Read More

THE SUIT (poem & podcast)

Please click play to enjoy an audio reading

THE SUIT
He looked at her,
annoyed. Frustrated.
Again, she was on
one of her rampages
and he wasn't making
matters any easier.

After throwing a glass,
instead of something worse,
he went downstairs and
snatched the scotch.
It went down good.
A bit too fucking good.
Another sip.
And then, he remembered
their first date; went
to his closet and tried
to find the suit he wore.

It was a sad suit now,
but so fucking regal
in its heyday.
He touched its
texture and wanted
to wear it. And then
he smelled the musk
on the suit from
the night they met.
It certainly brought him
back. A shiver.

He smirked at the noise
she was making somewhere
in their house and all
he could do was wonder
how they got there?

---

"The Suit" by Anthony Venutolo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3 here. Music by Boom Boom Beckett, track4 "Quiche Lorraine" from the album "Vélos" and provided by Jamendo.

Read More

'TO THE WHORE WHO STOLE MY POEMS' (with BUKOWSKI READING)

I was speaking with someone the other day about one of my favorite Bukowski poems, "To the Whore Who Stole My Poems." Is that a great fuckin' title or what?? In any case, here is the link for the text in case you haven't read it.

If you don't feel like reading, sit back and enjoy this fan made tribute with good 'ol Hank reading it.

Read More